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Roleplaying:Into the Heat
Act 1 O.K. this is an RP, i got the intro started. =] My first RP just read the intro and let your first post peer deeply into your character (set up your char). I've set mine up as Conrad. Life was bad. There was a war, oil shortages, and the threat of communism looming over everyone everywhere. And now, the Army was being used to police the cities. Life was real bad. Eddie couldn't deal with the pressure of living under The Man any longer. Armed only with a first printing of Kerouac's'On the Road', and an old diesel motorcycle, Eddie left Chicago, heading generally south-west. He had to stop often, bargaining cheap labor for old cooking oil to keep his journey moving. The old bike broke pretty often, and he'd have to stay in one place for a week or more to trade enough work for the parts and tools. It was August when his bike broke down again, this time in the middle of a nowhere-town in Oklahoma. The people were wary of him, being an outsider, but he only got called a commie by a few of the older folks. He let it slide. They were The Man, but they didn't know any better. He found work in a Dot's Diner as a grill cook. A man from the little church on the outskirts of town let him sleep there, and work on his bike, in exchange for listening to the services. It wasn't quite the same as church from his childhood. This church taught about God's Hand handing technological knowledge straight to the worthy. He picked up some work at the garage. Life wasn't so bad. And then, October. Life got real bad. The townsfolk were caught up in religious fervor, and Eddie had to go along with it. He stood behind them when they watched the apocalypse and cheered. He knew the world was gone. When the town's exodus came, he went along with them. Life could only get better from here. Francis Harris was pissed off. Then again, had there been a day since "All Hell Breaks Loose Day"? Sure, the man was getting on in his years and reading the newspaper had told him everything he had needed at the time, but his nine-year-old daughter, Lia, was finally the one that had made him move from Oklahoma City to that podunk little town full of crazies that the two now called home. "Daddy?" The girl had called on that fateful day. Frank was, as always, in his study with a bottle of whiskey, poring over his latest design. "This one," he thought, "Is gonna land me that government contract." The pen descended on its final line as Lia cracked open the door and called out again. "Daddy? The box is talking again. What's a 'noo-kee-ler bomb'?" The pen snapped. The next half hour had been a blur as Frank turned on his television to find, of course, there were mushroom clouds in D.C. He gathered up what few belongings he had needed (and of course what Lia couldn't leave behind) and hustled the two of them and their Mr. Handy Buckminster into the Corvega that sat in the garage. Then the group had dissappeared, rode for all the car could handle, arriving in the town after about four hours of driving. And none too soon. Sure enough, after about two days watching and waiting, the sunrise at three o'clock A.M finally came. The mushroom cloud over Oklahoma City nearly blinded him, and he remembered nothing after that. What more was there to do now, anyways? Francis took to scotch like a duck to water and became swept up in the community's little religious society- but never once did he forget about Lia's needs. Never. And so he had joined the fold of the villagers, along with them beginning to succumb to the dangers of radiation. However, he could not bear to see his body torn asunder by the effects of that horrid glow, and scavenged a radiation suit together from the remains of the dead scientists that grew in number every day. He took to wearing the suit for hours, days, weeks at a time, eventually scavenging Buckminster's fusion batteries to give the suit a self-sustaining power source so that he would never have to leave it. And thus he preserved himself from the radiation and remained alongside the group he had joined with little Lia, adorned in her own rubber shield. Adam Gibson sat in his little piece of heaven. His ex-wife had told him he was crazy, spending his savings reinforcing the basement in case someone dropped a bomb on good ol' America. Didn't look so crazy now, did it? He was sitting at a little workbench, performing the daily inspection of his guns, all civilian bought, or taken with him when he was moved to Inactive Reserve after withdrawal from the Middle-East after America lost interest in the Resource Wars. He was happily reassembling his M1911, and was getting ready to move on to his DSK Sniper Rifle. It was a fine weapon, standard issue military grade, with a civilian Law Enforcement chamber and firing pin. It struck the balance between the Law Enforcement Rifle's greater accuracy and the Military Issue's greater durability, and it struck the balance nicely. Of course, the Quartermaster would have gone berserk if he had got wind of these little "improvements". When he had finished the long, leisurely field-strip, cleaning and reassembly of the rifle, he turned on his radio, and sat down with his book. It was written by someone who thought they knew what war was. Someone who thought it was all heroes and villains, completely unrealistic. Real war was ugly, violent, morally ambiguous, and one man's hero was another man's devil made manifest. Adam fit the bill of both descriptions nicely. He was a Delta, selected from the Army Rangers. That meant he was beyond good. He had excelled in the regimented, organized, regularity of the military. He had graduated from Ranger training at the top of the group in CQC, Marsmanship, Edged Weapons, and LRRP. Then he had left Delta Force Training with similar accomplishments, as well as fluency in Chinese, Arabic and a working knowledge of German and Korean. He had been decorated twice for bravery, once for acting above and beyond the call of duty, and once for exemplary action in the face of overwhelming enemy forces. He had also been decorated as a sharpshooter more times than he cared to count. Well, actually, five times, he was bothered to count. Now, he was 35, sitting in his fortified basement, reading a book, with no idea where his ex-wife and his eight-year old son were. What the hell had happened to his life in the past year and a half? As Conrad strode into the House of Belief, where they would send him to convert some of the non-believers. The secrataries always gave him crap, he was one of the few Revealers who was not born into the Original Believers. They allowed him into the Head Revealer's room, his new assignment was a small settlement close to one of the "islands of belief" in the middle of nowhere. He was to work with Ryan, an old friend, and one of the older Revealers, Jackson. They left the House of Belief after recieving their assignment, jumped on one of the makeshift train cars that criss-crossed much of the "Empire," as many now called the area of influence TAR had, and they started off toward the horizon. Conrad never likes these "islands of belief," they weren't always the friendliest of areas. Francis had recently stumbled upon the Gibsom home while he was out searching for anti-radiation medicine. Lia was getting hit by radiation sickness again, and she was beginning to become lethargic. Come to think of it, Francis had begun to feel it too. So he had started going out and scavenging for materials when he saw a light in one of the basement windows of one of the houses. That day, however, he was tired and wouldn't bother with it. He had scavenged one measly IV of RadAway from the bottom floor of the wrecked hospital and siphoned the amber liquid into Lia as fast as he could. Tonight, though, tonight... Francis stood at the basement doors of Gibson's house. Looking nervously at the door through his polarized orange dome of security, Francis reached down and, with trembling hands, threw open the doors with a loud crash. "HELLO?" The frightened man shouted, eyes bugging out as he descended into the cavernous basement. "ANYONE HOME?" He continued shouting regardless of how close or far away Adam was. "I NEED HELP! AND ANTI-RADIATION MEDS! MY DAUGHTER'S IN TROUBLE!" Adam stood behind the little archway that led into the main room of the basement. He stepped out behind Francis, while hitting the door control button he had looted from his garage. The doors to the basement whined shut, and Adam pointed his gun right at the back of Francis' head. They had been friends before the bombs dropped. Adam's son and Francis' daughter had been friends too. Francis was now bursting into his basement looking for meds. How had it come to this. "You'll need a new damn head if you don't take that helmet off, sit the fuck down and stop behaving like you own my house." Adam snarled. Adam didn't really care whether or not Francis complied. Adam was the one with a fully loaded .45 Colt M1911 in his hand. He could kill Francis and be done with this in less than ten seconds. But where would that leave Lia? Adam couldn't do that. Although, in Syria, during the War, he had shot a Syrian General at his dinner table. That had been a terrible second, watching the man drop off his chair and splutter his last in front of his grandchildren. Adam couldn't do that to Lia. "Just sit down and talk, Frank." Adam sighed. Something very unexpected happened at this point. Francis would have, under any other circumstance, just stood there cooly and paid no attention to the gun to his head. That, however, would have happened if he was moderately inebriated. However, the fact that it was a Sunday (or was it a monday? Francis couldn't recall) left him completely off guard and without a drink. So another thing happened. Francis let out a shrill, high-pitched, almost girlish shreek and jumped so high his helmeted head scraped the low cieling of the basement. However, hearing Adam's voice, the father-turned-scavver calmed down fairly quickly- although he was still a bit on guard. "Oh... Adam." He released the seals on his helmet and slowly lifted the cumbersome thing off of his head. He reached down to his hip and switched off the 02 ventilator and turned towards his friend, taking a healthy step back when he found himself staring at a loaded .45 handgun. "It's... Uh, it's good to see you. I didn't... Err... I didn't recognize the house from the front, it's kind of a wreck." Frank wringed his hands together in front of himself, feeling guilty about breaking into his old friend's home looking for radiation meds. But he had fallen on desperate times, and what help would those zealots be? "Uhh... It's about Lia." He said quietly, finding a chair and stumbling over to it. "Those zealots... The crazies in the town over that hill. They took us in when the bombs started, but when the clouds faded... They went into the hot zone. "I had no choice to not follow them. They were the safest group to be in at the time, and I couldn't bear to bring Lia with me all the way across the country to get away from it. I hoped..." He lowered his head, looked at his lap. "I hoped all the crap they said about going after the tech in the Oklahoma City ruins was just a lie... I was wrong, Adam, I was dead wrong. Lia's got radiation poisoning, and it's getting harder to find fusion batteries and oxygen tanks..." Frank cut off, holding his head with his hands and shaking his head. After a second, he went on. His cheeks were drained of color, his eyes were sunk deep into their skull and ringed with deep purple bags. "I just... I just need some anti-radiation meds, and then I'll be gone. I'm sorry, Adam." Adam sat down on the chair opposite Francis. He wasn't in the habit of giving handouts. Least of all anti-rad meds. And even less so to members of that damned cult. Adam had gone out once or twice, however, he didn't use a radsuit like Francis. He used a set of overalls he took from the hazmat office at the local college, and a gas-mask. He had modified that suit too. He added a tactical vest to it, and some shoulder and leg protection. The last thing he wanted was exposure out there. His geiger counter wasn't reading fatally high levels, but they were still above and beyond safe occupational exposure levels. That and Geiger counters weren't all that reliable for measuring Gamma Radiation. "I got some Potassium Iodide pills, and some RadAway. The university may have some meds in the science building. The med school was looted in the first few weeks, though." Adam said. The potassium iodide pills wouldn't be much use if she was already sick though. "And you can find some pretty useful oxygen bottles down at the plant hire stores." Adam was considering offering to go on a med-hunt with Francis at this point. He'd like to think Francis would do the same if it were himself and Jack in their position. "I won't take anything you don't need." Francis said, looking back at the stairs of the basement, having calmed down a little bit. "The university sounds like the most reasonable solution for now; I already checked the hospital and the pharmacy, but what little I could access of those places was already looted. You can come along, if you want. Less of a risk for me, lacking any weapons and all..." Then Francis stood from his seat and clumsily resealed the helmet piece of the radiation helmet. "I guess I'd better get moving then, Lia's going to wonder where I've gotten off to if I don't get back before sunrise. Thank you, Adam." And with those few words, Francis headed for the stairs. Adam shrugged. It was better than reading an inaccurate, unrealistic book that claimed to be non-fiction. He pulled on his HazMat overalls and gas mask while Francis stood on the stairs waiting for him. He slid his M1911 into its hoslter, and his Ka-Bar knife into it's sheath. Then he loaded his DSK rifle into a waterproof sports bag, which he slung over his back and followed Francis up the stairs. Adam had always wondered what it would have been like to go on a hunting trip with Francis. Francis led him across the road to his house, carefully moving around the wreckage of Adam's splintered residence. The sun was beginning to light up the horizon with the purple and green haze that only a severely polluted atmosphere could produce. Adam started humming a song as they crossed the road. Elvis Presley's "In the Ghetto". It was a fitting song for such a forlorn looking day. What was the point of it all? Who had struck first? All of this ran through Adams head as he followed Francis' carefully placed footsteps through the wreckage of the Harris house. Francis delicately plodded into the ruins of his old home, looking at the remains of the front garage as he stepped into the wrecked framework. The remains of a lawnmower- he could tell because part of the label hadn't burnt away, and what was left of it had been reverse-printed onto the frame- stood eternal vigil in the ruined garage. "I can't believe what's happened to this place... How many bombs were dropped, anyways?" Francis wondered aloud as he stepped from the grage through a ruined doorframe into what would have been the foyer. He could often look from the back window of the foyer and see the greenhouses and florist where he had bought his first boquet of flowers for his dear wife Emmaline. She'd been out on business somewhere on the west coast, in Los Angeles, and was gone away when the nukes went off. She'd probably be dead by now, he hadn't heard from her in... "No," Francis thought stubbornly, "I can't let that disctract me." He stepped across the blown-out wall of the foyer and headed for Lia's bedroom, along the way picking up the remains of a charred teddy bear. "Greenhouse is over there," he said, more to himself than to Adam, "we'll grab any oxygen tanks over there first and then take the road over to the university campus." As the three men took turns moving the cart, Conrad hoped that this island of belief didn't turn out to be some secessionist rebels. He'd heard stories of them, fighting to the last man, woman, and child, unaccepting of the True Belief, the Revealers that took care of these secesionist groups wore the thickest armor Conrad had seen, probably from some military armory. As the car came closer to its destination he saw that it was nothing more than some villagers with some Technology to help them farm. As they came up to the end of the line, the villigers hurriedly came over to tell the three about a group of raiders. This was their mission, to convert them or kill them, simple, at least saying it was simple. From all the times Conrad had put the barrel of .223 up to a person's temple, all the times hed seen the grimace a person makes a split second before their brain painted a pattern on the wall or ground, Conrad couldn't get used to that feeling. He couldn't make it out, whether it was just nausea or some untold excitement. As the locals finished their story Ryan tapped Conrad on the shoulder, "Just over that hill is the Raider camp in the university, if we wait 'til nightfall we can catch them by surprise, if they don't attack us fist. But, you're the one leading this mission, what should we do?" Conrad decideson it, "One of us will patrol the perimeter, and at nightfall we'll attack the camp." Life was hard. Eddie traveled here with the townsfolk. He helped salvage buildings with them. He even helped build some new ones. Eventually, most folks had a home. The place they'd settled already had a few survivors living there, but the church said this was the spot. A few of the survivors didn't like this, and died trying to drive the new folk out. The rest didn't fight back much after that, but Eddie could see the unrest in their faces. Soon, the settlers got into the rhythm of their new lives here. Eddie had built himself a little shack. He'd even started seeing a girl, Patricia. Eddie went out scavenging in town more than most of the others. His motorcycle made it easier to get to the ruins, and carried more than he could on foot. One of the guys from the old garage had built a sidecar for the bike, and went with him most days. That makeshift sidecar would have rattled itself to pieces if Eddie could have ever managed to get the bike go above 25 mph again. "Gee, Eddie, isn't it hot for February?" John remarked. "Yeah it is, man," Eddie replied. He unzipped his leather jacket as they traveled. "Where are we gonna go today?" John flipped through the old phone book. "Let's hit up Industrial Heights. We've got enough food for a few days, lets see if we can't get some parts, or tools." "You got it. Let's cook," Eddie said, as he kicked the bike up to double-digit MPH. An hour later, they were clipping through a chainlink fence around a factory. The city was always eerily silent. Once through, they found an unlocked door and entered. This factory made some kind of big machinery. They filled the gas tank on the motorcycle with some industrial oil they found in a drum amongst hundreds of empty barrels. Most had been empty for years. After several hours exploring, they came across the crown jewel. They had found an intact gas welding setup, with a few gas tanks. They loaded it onto the bike. As they were loading the last cylinder, they heard some very angry people coming towards them. A shot rang out. Eddie had to kick the starter a few times, but eventually, the old bike came to life. They sped away as fast as the machine would go, which meant they were barely able to outpace the gang chasing them. Eddie kept his head down, and hoped they could get the welder back home. As Conrad tried to catch a wink of sleep he was persisted with the thought of all the splattered brains he'd seen in his conversiona, with the faces of both the thankful beilievers and the spiteful rebels, with the gleeful faces of the Revealers which went to "convert" the seccessionist rebels. All these images tumbled around in his mind, setting his heart in turmoil. Ryan was coming back around to finish has patrol, Jackson got up, pulled out his .308 sniper out of its bag and slung it on his back, Conrad sat up checking the sights on his 10mm and .223. "You ready guys?" Ryan asked "The university's lights just went black, only a few patrols out." Conrad nodded and the three set out onto the hill. At the top Conrad looked at Jackson as he flipped out the bipod, attaching a silencer to the end, and he went prone, into a competition shooting position. Conrad looked at the one closest to the hill, he saw the bullet slice cleanly through the neck, continuing and hitting one of the other raiders in the foot. Conrad watched, Jackson a professional marksman, every bullet hit the raiders in a different macabre path, the first one's throat ripped cleanly off, the second one's heart punctured, killing him instantly, the third and fourth's brains splattered on the walls of the university, and the last one with a two bullets, one in the throat, the other through the eye. As Jackson checked the entracnes for any others, Ryan and Conrad slid down the small slope and walked towards the entrance, Ryans flashlight attached to his assault rifle lighting the way. Alan Armstrong bent over his latest patient. This one showed the same signs of radiation poisoning as the others. He wondered why he had come with the town, surely people still needed doctors even after "crazy day" as he put it. He sighed and got back to work on his latest patient. He injected her with a boost of rad-x, like he told everyone to do, not that most of them did of course. He sighed wrapped the patient's leg in bandages and went off to speak to one of the scavangers, he needed more medical supplies. As Ryan shined his light up to the main entrance of the University, Conrad noticed the lock had been broken. Ryan told Conrad to stand guard as he took a quick look inside to check if it was clear. Conrad looked at the surrounding hills, taking the occasional glance into the university. He heard a few shots, but Ryan could take care of most people, he was a sly Revealer, very nimble and stealthy. After a few more minutes Ryan walked out, Jackson walking down the hill after dispatching a couple of raiders heading to the entrance. Jackson pulled out a large section of lead pipe and a small caliber revolver, he asked, "You sure it's safe, you know I'm not good in enclosed spaces." "Don't worry, I'm sure you wont need to use your rod on any raiders," Ryan retorted. Jackson and Ryan are almost complete opposites, the only thing they have in common are the amounts of mutation they've received from the radiation. Conrad just waited for their small quarrel to smooth over and asked, "You two ready, or are you gonna need some time alone?" They both nodded for readiness and the three ventured into the University. It was like stepping into a puddle of Grade A Brahmin shit, It was dank in the hallways, stank of human feces, vomit, and piss, and wholly depressing. As they continued through the hallways looking, but not hoping to find, any children, they noticed the smell of death grew considerably stronger in the food hall. Cannibalism. The kitchen had run out of food and the Raiders resorted to offing their own for survival. 'At least they didn't raid the surrounding villages,' Conrad thought to himself. The university was eerily lonely, although they may have eaten more of their own than they should have, The only place without the smell of death lurking around every corner, ironically, was the medical rooms, the raiders didn't seem to have known how to use the medical equipment to fix themselves up. The three resolved the search with relieving some prisoners of their pain and walking back out to the main entrance of the university, marking it, and taking with them most of the medical equipment for the Priest's evaluation back at the main city medical practitioners. The small raid seemed to go smoothly. Adam and Francis had made it about halfway to the plant hire storage buildings from the Harris abode. The town was looking like hell. Francis had said something about a back way, because he'd seen bandits along the main streets. Adam, having little to fear from bandits, or anyone else for that matter, had never taken this way before. He hoped it would pay off. Then, as he scanned the pavements for anything out of the ordinary, he spotted something, not quite out of th ordinary, but very, very interesting. And by out of the ordinary, his brain meant anything alive. But this interesting thing was, to Adam at least, more important than survivors. A Wall-Mart that hadn't been looted yet. He signalled for Francis to follow him for a minute. Francis' body language said he was a little pissed off about this detour, but if he'd gone Adams way, they wouldn't have passed this litle patch of heaven. Adam was about to kick the door when he realised that they were sliding automatic doors, and that no matter how hard he kicked, they wouldn't budge. So, with a little help from Francis, he forced the doors apart for them both to be able to scramble in. Adam made a bee-line to the gun cage, shooting the lock out and pulling it open. He grabbed a few boxes of .308 for his DKS Rifle, and a few boxes of .45 ACP for his M1911. He spotted a few nice "cool" looking guns, but then he considered this is a Post-Apocalyptic world. Chances are, if it looks "cool", it'll break, and then you're up to your armpits in shit. He decided to ignore the shiny pistols and stick with his good old M1911. He looked over at Francis, who was desperately rummaging through the pharmacy section. He might find something for the nausea Lea was suffering, but there'd be no rad meds in there. Maybe the hospital. Might be worth a check after getting those oxygen tanks back to the houses. Francis, however, waqs ill-educated in the etiquette of gun delicacy proportinate to how cool it loked. He immediately went for an ornate looking Remington 870 "Wingmaster" 12-gauge shotgun and grabbed a box of slug rounds. Checking the shotgun over, he grabbed a gun sling off the nearby wall and attached it to the weapon, looking it over before he attached it over his shoulder. Having never done such a thing before, however, the Wingmaster slid right off his back and clattered to the floor. Retrieving it quickly, Francis blushed under his helmet and tried again, fimrly attaching the gun's sling and making damn sure it was attached tight to his back. The gun stayed. "Alright," Francis chided in his best action-hero manner, "Now i've got some firepower." Walking back over to pharmacy, he looked over the equipment there. There was a couple small, persciption-level bottles of Rad-X, but other than that hte shelves were clear of anything that may have prevented radiation in the least. He picked up a few bottles of Pepto-Bismol, a few syringes of morphine and a couple bottles of Vicodin, then picked up a messenger bag and tossed his loot into it. He went back to toys, selected a few plushy teddy bears and jammed them into the bag, too. Ironic that two fluffy pink teddy bears would be sitting on several boxes of Remington slugs, an 8-inch carbon steel Bowie knife and some bottles of pepto and vicodin. "Alright, I've found everything I can. You wanna go back to vehicles and see if we can find a heavy-duty chain to keep the doors shut until we can come back and carry some more?" Francis inquired of his paramilitary friend. Conrad, Ryan, and Jackson made their way back to the small village, the surrounding hills almost pure dirt and mud giving them a hard time. At the top of the hills they surveyed the surrounding area, not much save for some broken buildings a couple supermarkets and a half-destroyed town. The only thing that was different about this half-destroyed town was the fact that the only wear it had seemed to be more from neglect than raiding, no barricades, graffiti, or any large amount of bullet holes. This was unheard of around much of the Oklahoan wasteland,and with Raiderrs having the university "base" nearby, it seemed almost impossible. Conrad wanted to look around some of the stores to hopefully find some .223 for his pistol, He looked at Ryan and Jackson and said, "I'm running on half a box of .223's, i'm gonna do a bit of scavenging, you can go back to the village and catch the last bit of sleep before we head back to the main city." Jackson nodded and headed back, Ryan took a moment, "You need any back-up?" "No, it seems fairly abandoned, you can come if you're looking for supplies." Ryan yawned, "When you get back, don't wake us too abruptly," They shook hands and Ryan began to walk back, catching up with Jackson. 'At least i hope it's abandoned, the last thing i wasnt to deal with is some scavenging assholes,' Conrad thought to himself as he headed toward the new-looking Wal-Mart. Adam walked through the Wal-Mart, scanning the vehicles section to see if there were any heavy-duty chains around. Nothing but crappy little things that wouldn't keep a child out. He walked over to the terminal at the help desk and began to try a little hacking. They had taught him how to do that in Delta. Who knew that the scientific parts of his training would be useful after a nuclear armageddon. He finally managed it, and started searching the stocl records to find any motorcycle chains. Tat sort of thing was what he was looking for. Not a crappy little bike chain like the ones on the shelves. His wife's necklaces had looked stronger than those things. Adam shifted a little as he heard something scraping around in the back room. In where staff would disappear to whenever you asked them where to find something. ---- Conrad moved slowly through the staff room, having made hisway in through a fire exit. Thankfully the alarm hadn't gone off. That would have alerted every raider in the area. He couldn't hear anything inside the store. He hoped that meant there was nothing looted. Then he shuddered as his leg caught on a chair, dragging it across the concrete floor. It sounded like a gun going off in the silence of the room. He tensed for a second, his eyes screwed shut. He opened his eyes, one at a time, and realised nothing had burst through the door and killed him. He sighed relief and opened the door slowly, and quietly. It barely even clicked. There seemed to be someone in a sealed suit with a gas mask working at a terminal, and someone further in the store singing. He could finish this quietly. Or should he? He could wait until they left. But what if they looted the place, or were holding down the fort for a larger raider group? With a slow sigh, he stalked towards the man at the terminal. ---- Yup. It was another person. Had just come in through the door, quiet as a church mouse. Adam tapped away at the keys, something unintelligible, that vaguely resembled a cross between Welsh and Russian showing on the screen from his pointless typing. It was just buying time now. Closer, just a little closer. THERE! Adam spun to his feet, and slammed his M1911 into the man's face, pitching him backwards. The man fell to the floor, and was about to sit up, a gun in his hand. Then Adam descended on him, knocking the gun from his hand and sending it skidding across the floor. With the return strike, Adam knocked the man back to a prone position. "Thought I was just a big awkward computer nerd, huh?" Adam said. Francis came running up, a tire iron in one hand, the other trying to get the Remington 870 from his back. "I was an Army Ranger. You should see what I can do with just my thumbs!" Adam snapped, leering through his gas mask as he worked the slide of his M1911 with his thumbs. "You're one of those cultists, right? Yeah, you are. I've seen you around. You're pretty damn important too. What kind of Rad Meds will we get if we return you unharmed? Or what can we get from the Raiders if we let you go over on their turf?" (I thought I would join as the Ghoul Sasuke Kagemaru) A man was walking around the area, ever since he came to america things have been bad, the bombs fell, his skin became rotton, and his family was most likly dead due to him culture. Life sucked for Sasuke, and he was hungry. Luckly for him he saw a Walmart, ghe heard about the store from some friends back in Japan. Maybe there were survivors who wearn't crazy. His life story dates back from many centuries, his family, the Kagemaru was reknown as a ninja Clan, wars were their life's blood, and they trained teven in modern times because they knew that they would be needed. Sasuke was chosen to Kill a powerful Politicol Leader in American, pity the moment he stepped off the baot in Cailforina he saw the Nukes fell. After he woke up he found his body rotton, so he walked, looking for survivors. His travels took him here and hopegullly he doesn't die. As conrad suddenly and fully realized he was going to be taken hostage and ransomed off he couldn't even image the laughing stock he would become. 'I should have brought Ryan along' Conrad thought to himself while he was being tied up with some rope. He knew Ryan and Jackson would come looking for him after they got some sleep, Maybe he could stall a little and give him some time to leave a trail. He looked at the one with the gas mask and asked, "If you need radiation meds, I could take you to the university nearby, there was a room full of medication." Conrad prayed silently to the great Technology that this bonehead Pre-War vet would agree. But it wasn't the gas masked one that answered, the one wearing the full radiation suit answered, "Really! Here let me take you for the supplies." The gasmaked one looked as if he was ready to kill him, "You idiot!, You don't know how these cultists think do you? He's not going to help you, he'll just wait till you lower your guard then attack you." The one in the gas mask seemed to seethe with anger, he was not very fond of outsiders. "Please, I'm only tring to help, you already have me captured..." The gas masked moved slightly, the man inside of it thinking intently, and Conrad was using the marker given to all revealers, to mark areas or building they have already visited. Jackson had the light used to reveal the marker's writing. Sasuke looked attthe Wallmart, he didn't know whether to go in or not. he knew he had to find other surviors and find out what happened, but he already fought against 2 groups of people who thought he was one of them American Movie Monsters. HE didn't know what to do but he took a deep breath and openes the slightly cracked glass of the wall mart and walked in. "Err..." Frank looked at his Remington and inspected the box of shells next to him. Fumbling around for about thirty seconds, he eventually managed to push a single slug shell into the chamber. He'd had the gun for at least ten minutes now and not once had he attempted to figure out how to load it. One of the USA's most prominent arms designers, folks. "I dunno, Adam. You don't seem to think we should trust him..." He raised the Wingmaster to his shoulder, pointing the gun at Conrad's chest. However, the shotgun seemed to have a lot of sway, even in the ready position. Frank wasn't exactly built; the gun was heavy and his upper body strength wasn't necessarily all there. "Maybe I should just shoot him?" The sound of doors opening in the front of the store alerted him to someone else's presence. Either that or he had woken up from a horrible, stretched-out dream and his wife had come home from Los Angeles. Expecting to wake up the instant he turned around, he instead found himself staring down what may have been the most horrifying thing he had ever seen in his life from all the way across the store. He... Or was it a he? Regardless, it may have at one point been human. But now he was most definitely not dead. The face of the thing reminded him of a movie he had seen a long time ago; something called "Night of the Living Dead". Skin was hanging off of his face in great gobs, there were ragged scars across the bare flesh. His scalp was flaked and burnt, and its eyes were dead, sunk deep into its skull. Startled, he jerked back on the trigger only to find it had no yield whatsoever. Pulling futilely on the trigger a few more times, he finally noticed he had left the pump half-cocked. Quickly pulling the shotgun's pump back into position, he promptly fired the slug at the horrifying thing. Not only did the shot go wildly off course and score a hit on an offensive piece of ventilation, the recoil nearly dislocated Francis' shoulder, spun him around on his feet and dropped him to fhe floor. Conrad watched as the radiation suit twirled as if it didn't even have a man inside of it. The one named Adam quickly pulled up the Colt handgun to the other ghoul, who had nothing but a sword next to him but looked very agile, and said, "Take your filthy ass out of here and we promise not to ahoot a hollow point into your irradiated head." The ghoul looked horrified and terrified at the man, while the radiation suit raised its self from the ground, shotgun raised once again. Conrad took his time to check the situation, in the moments his two captors had tied him up they forgot to take his .223. While the two captors made the lone ghoul drop his weapon, Conrad used the knife on his ankle to cut the rope quietly and took the .223 out of its holser. He took aim at Adam's shooting arm and fired a round into him above the elbow, then commanding the man in the radiation suit to lower the shotgun, The ghoul still standing there shocked at the turn of events. Conrad looked at him and said, "Don't stand there, take the gun from the guy before they try to capture you too." Francis watched as his friend took a bullet to the arm. The round made his old friend bark out a curse word and drop his colt. Throwing his shotgun to the side, Francis made a snatch for the M1911 he had dropped, retrieving it in one hand with the handle inverted and the barrel pointing back at himself. Turning the gun around with both hands, in a flash he had emptied half the magazine at Conrad. Four of the five bullets he fired missed completely; burrowing into the various scenery scattered around. The fifth embedded itself in Conrad's gun-hand's wrist, forcing him to drop the .223 he'd been holding. "STAND DOWN!" He shouted in the bravest voice he could muster, which, coming from Francis was little more than a meek, shaky quailing yell. (sorry i'm late, busy with chores) "got it" Sasuke shouted back as he picked up Shining Death and twirled it, Conrad could see he knows how to use a sword. "Dance of the Dragan" Sasuke shouted as he made a gracful moves at the man who shot him, and ina flash he fell to the ground knocked out because he had the backend strike him and not the blade end. sasuke woudl rather not make too many enemies and he didn't know if thae man who just escaped was a friend or foe. Sasuke got behind Francis and held the sword at his neck "Talk, who is that man, and who are you? Tell the truth or you find out what this sword feels like in your neck" Sasuke said in the harshest tone he could muster. The unmistakeable scent of urine wafted out of Francis's sealed radiation suit. "Um... Um..." Francis was visibly shaking, squirming heavily in Sasuke's iron grip. "F-francis Harris, a-a-and the f-f-ellow you j-just knocked out was A-a-a-adam... Adam Gibson." Then he went limp. He appeared to have succumbed to some sort of hyperventilation side effect or outright fainted. Sasuke looked into the mask and he noticed he passed out "Eh Interagatioon was never my thing" He said in Japanese, he could speak english but when he talks to himself its always Japanese. He then Turned to Conrad "So who are you and why did these people tie you up?" Sasuke asked laying the man on the floor gently, he then gripped the sword tightly, he didn't know if this man would attack him like all the others due to his new look but if he did attack him, then Sasuke will n ot be so kind as to hit him with the blunt edge. Adam rolled to his feet. He was ready for the Ghoul this time. "Harder head than you think. And a better actor too." Adam said, trying to hide the fact that he had blacked out for a few seconds there. Nerve cluster srike. The Japanese guy at the induction training had taught them that. Some kind of ninja thing. "So, little flaky ninja, care to try again while I'm watching?" The ninja sighed, well, it sounded like a sigh. In his rad suit and mask, Adam wouldn't be able to compete with this rotting freakshow's agaility, so he persevered to command the terrain. He kept on his feet, as much as the suit would let him as he goaded the ninja onwards. Then the ninja thrust, saying something strange in Japanese. Adam's Japanese was patchy, at best, but it sounded like "Dragon drinks monkey." Adam sidestepped, staying dangerously close to the blade, and caught the zombie freak's hand, then caught his other hand as he went for a counter strike. While Adam couldn't copete with Stubbs in terms of agility, he had more than enough strength to come out on top in a stand-up grapple. And the ninja seemed to be obsessed with the concept of honour. Adam could tell by the look in its eye as he kicked it in the groin, and followed up with a headbutt. As the Ghoul fell to the ground, Adam pinned him by sitting on his chest, and repeatedly slammed the grip of his M1911 into the zombie's throat, while angrily demanding to know its name and why it was here, working with the cultists. The zombie turned its head, spat out some foul-looking blood and saliva mix and hled its hands out to the side. Adam stood up, and then felt the dart in his leg. He pulled it out and stared at the tip. He really hoped that it wasn't some kind of lethal toxin. "Son of a . . . " Adam grunted, his vision blurring. "Don't think you can beat me by gettin all . . . bendy." With those words, Adam collapsed into a heap, snoring loudly through his gas mask. Sasuke got up"Mother fucker, made me use my last sleep dart, god these things cost me a lot of Yen you know" He said to himself, he mentaly debated whether to kill the man but he then decided on tying both men's hnds togather with some nearby rope "So as I was saying, who are you?" HE said to conrad who seemed to be looking for somthing, most likly his possions Frank was semi-incapacitated and tied to Adam's back by his own wrists. It wasn't a very pleasant day at all, what with suddenly being attacked by faggot ninjas and psychotic cultists, then bound to a man that he had known for a few years, and had suddenly decided to take a nap on him. Shrugging his left arm out of the bindings, the radiation suit-clad scientist gained a sudden burst of courage. The scientist hated Japan, and pretty much everything about it. He had always harbored a secret dream about beating the fuckballs out of a ninja... Now was his chance. While the moron was distracted with chatting up the other guy, Harris grabbed a shard of metal from the floor and slowly stood up, his bright yellow suit still miraculously not given away. When he saw his chance, he leapt forward, driving the shard into Sasuke's lower back with all the force he could muster, and tackling the ninja to the ground. Taken by surprise, Sasuke went down quickly, and Francis began to mercilessly beat the guy about the face, laying into him with all kinds of surprising force. He quickly put the ghoul into the darkness of unconsciousness, and then tossed him over the bar with a single heave. "Thank God," he said quietly to himself, "that guy was pissing me off." He took the shard, now coated with Sasuke's blood, and sawed through the bindings wrapped around the ex-soldier's wrists. Slapping him lightly across the cheek, he moved Mr. Gibson back into consciousness and lifted him to his feet. "time to go, bro," he said timidly again. "We still got the radiation medicine I tried to collect from back there, so we have everything we need." He started making for the nearest exit door, moving slowly so that Adam could catch up. Conrad looked up from the floor, watched as the two men walked to the exit. With the Japanese ghoul unconscious, and quite possibly dead, he couldn't take them both on and hope to come out alive. The most he could do is to try and track them and hope he doesn't lose their trail. As they exited the store, Conrad got a paper and marker, quickly jotting down what happened and what he was going to do, hopefully Ryan would be able to track him along with the two humans, while Jackson when back to bring s couple more Revealers. As he finished the note, he grabbed some of the .223 ammo and left the store. As he slunk through the cracked door he noticed the two were headed toward some suburban ruins. Without much cover Conrad would have to sneak around quietly and slowly. Category:Roleplaying Category:Restoration